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Saturday, May 1, 2010

Almost fat-free Oatmeal Cookies

If you are gluten-free and miss oatmeal cookies...read on.

If you are a consumer of gluten and love oatmeal cookies, you can keep reading, too.

These taste just like the real thing. No butter and no oil, yet they turned out moist and full of oatmeal cookie flavor. I made several different varieties: chocolate chip, cranberry-raisin, dried figs with chopped hazelnuts, and maple pecan (for this, I added an extra teaspoon or two of maple extract with the chopped pecans). They all turned out delicious, and the only dangerous thing is having them around the house, practically demanding to be eaten en masse.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cream together the mashed bananas and sugars. Add the vanilla/maple extract and honey and stir well.

In a small mixing bowl, mix together the flours, salt, and baking soda. Add them, little by little, to the wet ingredients, mixing well. Add the coconut and oats and continue to mix well.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until they are white with stiff peaks (you can do this with a hand mixer or roll up your sleeves and give your arm a workout). Fold the egg whites into the rest of the cookie batter as gently as possible.

If you are making the whole batch the same way, then add the ingredients of your choice - raisins, cranberries, nuts, or chocolate chips. However, if you want to end up with several different varieties, then separate the batter and mix the ingredients of your choice in.

Place the dough in the refrigerator for an hour or two, or in the freezer for 30 - 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 F and place about 2 tbsp. of dough on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 - 14 minutes, or until the edges are just turning brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack before serving. They'll harden a bit as they cool, so it's ok for them to look a little undercooked when they come out of the oven!